"They are up early the morning of the 17th and are the second brigade to advance to the Miller Cornfield. General Hartsuff is wounded early on during the advance while doing reconnaissance, so Colonel Coulter leads them into the fight, Major J. Parker Gould commands the 13th troops. They stand their ground under a heavy fire for 30 minutes before retiring to the rear to replenish their ammunition. 301 men go into the fight, 165 come out, for a loss of 45%. 26 men are killed.Sometimes, what seems like bad luck -- a wound that leaves you an amputee at age 30 -- turns out to be a life saver. You just never know.
Here's what happened to William A. Shute at 2nd Bull Run and in the days, months and years afterward. (For a complete history of his regiment's doings up to that point, see 13thMass.org ). He was hit by the musket in the left leg right above the foot. He fell and lay on the battlefield for three days until he was rescued and brought to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. During that period, his wound became infected, and he spent his waking hours picking maggots out of the puss that formed in the wound. Later, he was told by the doctors that removing the vile maggots was a mistake. They might have controlled the infection by devouring the bacteria. He also ministered to another soldier nearby who was more gravely wounded. (Years later, that other soldier became a U.S. Senator, and in a speech in Marlboro, he told the story of being saved by a Marlboro soldier named Shute. William A was in the audience and rose to greet the Senator.)
Somewhere either en route to or at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Shute's leg was amputated 8 inches below the knee. He left St. Elizabeth's for home, and mustered out with a full disability, in June 1863. (Pension was $3 per month at that time.) He returned to Marlborough, Massachusetts, and continued to build his large family of seven children, living at 3 Elm Place. One of his daughters, Jennie Shute, married a man named McDormand and moved to Washington D.C. William A. and his wife Fanny (Tarbell) Shute spent a year in Washington D.C., in 1898, where he worked for the War Pension Bureau. He returned to Marlboro and died there in 1903 of "cancer of the stomach."
This story comes to us from two sources. Our father, Bill Lovell, spent many happy days in Marlboro visiting his maternal Grandfather, Walter Dwight Shute, (1859-1927), William A's oldest son. Walter D told Daddy the stories about his own father's days immediately after being wounded, of helping the other soldier, and of being called out years later in the speech given by the U.S. Senator. Other details -- of the wound itself, of the pension, and of his work in Washington D.C.-- come from the Civil War Pension Records, housed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Alas, those records are not available on-line (at least not yet), but I have photocopied them for some enterprising descendant of William A Shute and William E. Lovell, who might one day lay claim to the role of family historian.
